JAMESTOWN – Orphan Grain Train shipped out a semitrailer load of food, school desks, library books and school textbooks this week to Liberia, a project that started in May.

Andrea Eckstein, interim branch manager of Orphan Grain Train in Jamestown, said the Liberian Children’s Ministry will distribute the food and supplies to schools served by churches in rural areas of the country.

“We really just want to thank the people of Jamestown,” Eckstein said, for their support, donations and volunteers.

The shipment includes 24,000 pounds of Mercy Meals, which are meal packets with four ingredients that provide a nutritious meal. The packets that are made up of rice, soy flakes, chicken flavoring with vitamins and freeze-dried vegetables are combined with water and cooked before eating.

This week’s shipment to Liberia will cost Orphan Grain Train from $10,000 to $12,000, Eckstein said. The semitrailer load goes to a railyard in Minneapolis and is sent to a container ship for delivery to Liberia.

It took 10 volunteers, including Darrell Roorda, about an hour to get the food, school desks and books loaded on the semitrailer Wednesday, working to pack it as full as possible. Roorda said he’s volunteered for three years and thanked the community for supporting Orphan Grain Train.

Eckstein said the need for food remains high at the 15 schools served by churches and supported by the Liberian Children’s Ministry.

“This time we wanted to get as many meals (shipped) as we could,” Eckstein said.

Each school has about 1,000 students and only has enough food for three meals a week, which can be a factor in school attendance.

“It’s a big incentive for the kids to come to school,” Eckstein said of the shipped meals.

The 24,000 pounds of meals on this shipment were assembled by volunteers working from around the state, many in small groups, she said. Volunteers from Moorhead, Minnesota, to Minot, Dickinson and “pretty much all over” North Dakota helped pack the meals, Eckstein said. Assembling the meals is a service to the people getting the food and also to the volunteers who want to do the work, Eckstein said.

Jamestown Middle School donated desk/chair units and the University of Jamestown donated desks. Books came from schools in Minot, Valley City, Litchville, Marion and Bismarck along with donated reading books and encyclopedias from the public.

When the Liberian Children’s Ministry began working to establish schools, they were buildings with a dirt floor and benches, Eckstein said. Some had no electricity and textbooks weren’t available.

“They really had been trying to teach with no materials at all,” Eckstein said.

The schools now have more supplies and the teachers have teaching manuals, she said. The students have books in classes and are encouraged to take books home during the summer to read and trade with other students.

Orphan Grain Train is a nonprofit Christian volunteer network that ships donated food, clothing, medical and other needed items to people in 69 different countries including the U.S., according to its website, https://www.ogt.org .

Orphan Grain Train is planning a shipment in August for the Republic of Georgia. Items including men, women and children's clothing, bedding, layette, hygiene and school kits, towels/washcloths and bikes are expected to ship sometime in mid-August, Eckstein said. The ministry in that project, the Association of Persons with Disabilities, Women, and IDPs in Tsalenjikha (APDWIT), helps people with disabilities, those who are internally displaced and women.

Orphan Grain Train accepts donations of money and other items to help others in need. For more information or to learn how to help, visit https://www.ogt.org .